Business Identity

[orion_joel]

Steve the "conversation" as such is all and none of these conversations. It is kind of like the main feed of twitter, it is a conversation, but a conversation made up of many smaller conversations. Or in other words the conversation is as a whole what everyone is saying about your business.

As such only some of this conversation you are going to hear or read, and a smaller portion actually have any input in. This is also where i disagree with you Phanio, while i do agree that listening is a very important role for anyone in business to play, i do not think that you should let your customers redefine your identity. If i was to listen to my customers in this way, my business identity would be redefined from a provider of quality products and services, to Mr. Crazy Low price Computers. If i listened and acted on what i hear, i would be selling everything under cost, and providing services for nothing because i sold the product and should show them how to read the user manual. This may be an extreme, but it is essentially what i would be leaving open to happen. So as it happens to maintain a profitable business, you do have to ignore some of the conversation about your business, or the industry you are in, in general.

While it may be true to some extent that unless you give the customer what they want you wont have any customers. You cannot blindly walk into giving the customer what they want without considering the impact on your own business. So if you do listen and provide in explicitly, you may actually have no business to build an identity around because you have gone broke.

Where i am starting to see this is coming to its own is in the fact that you need to have a balance, between giving information to build the conversation, and then listening to the conversation and taking what you need from it.

[vangogh]

Steve the conversation is really what other people are discussing with each other and saying about your business. It's not really about you pitching to the prospect or closing a sale.

People that aren't you talk about your business. It's that talk that's the conversation I'm referring to. Say one of your customers is talking to a friend about your business. The friend might be asking questions like how your system has worked. Does the fence keep the dogs in the yard? Were you pleasant to deal with? Were you responsive to questions? And many more questions.

Lets say all your marketing material says how friendly you are and what great service you offer. That's the conversation you hope two people are having about your business. If in reality you didn't offer great service then the conversation your customer and his friend are having is more likely going to be about your poor service than it will be about the good service your marketing material claims.

The conversation isn't anything to do with you. It's about what others say when talking about your business. If you think about Joel's original question say you do offer great service in practice (which I know you do). For some reason one customer decides they don't like you and so start telling others your service is lousy even though it's not. It's possible that the story or conversation of your business having lousy service spreads more than your claims of great service. In that way your business could be identified with poor service even though the reality is you offer great service.

[Steve B]

I'm referring to the first portion of his question that does relate to direct conversations: "this is in direct relation to discussions between you and the client."

I get the other part about the way your clients talk about you with others.

[vangogh]

Joel added that question, but in general that's not what people mean when they talk about "the conversation" In that first case I think it's more about negotiation and sales and that wouldn't allow a customer to change your identity in any way.

[orion_joel]

I really think that the question has evolved as part of this conversation.

I still think that there is some ways that your identity can be affected through a customer controlling a direct conversation with you though. For example maybe you identify your business as providing top quality products, and this is what you try to sell. However if you start getting customers coming to you, to get prices, and then pushing you for cheaper alternatives, then you could potentially lose that identity of being a quality supplier, and have people start to see your business as a supplier of cheap alternatives.

This may not be as a direct result of your conversation. But if you give in and sell the cheap products, it does not matter who asked for it, that customer may have begged you to supply the cheapest one available, but it still comes back to you supplied it and customers have short memory's when they want to. The conversation they will be having with their friend will be that you supplied it, and it was cheap and it only worked for 3 weeks.

[vangogh]

I think in those cases you have a lot of control. If people are coming to you and trying to get you to offer lower prices than you want all you have to do is say no. If your identity changes as a result of you delivering products cheaper and cheaper I wouldn't say it's a result of your customers. I'd say it's a result of you not staying consistent with your brand.

It's possible that the conversation (by others talking to others) about your company says you will lower your prices when asked that would still be on you if you are indeed lowering prices when asked.

If you are holding firm to your prices and people are still talking to each other about how you lower them when asked then it would be an example of customers having a conversation that may be changing your identity. You'd have to do what you could in that case to change the conversation.